I live in a house with a loft full of old photographs. My father is a talented amateur photographer and I found a stack of pictures he took of various scenes in Mauritius many years ago. I really felt that they were too lovely not to share. My mum was Mauritian, so we have a special place in our hearts for this little island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. This month also marks ten years since she passed away, so looking back on these pictures of her homeland makes me happy and they are very true to my memories.

And now, for something a little different. As you may have noticed from my occasional travel carry posts (when I am prepared enough to write about them in advance), I travel fairly regularly for work. Today I’m writing about a stack of notebooks that were given to my team by Nanjing Metro.

I’ve been working in Leipzig since Monday, a city I have never visited before. As with any business trip, I meticulously planned my stationery everyday carry. I’m attending a summit consisting of several talks, panel sessions and technical visits, so my stationery carry is geared towards easy notetaking and brainstorming.

We returned recently from a couple of weeks in the country of my dreams, Japan. Japan is such a photogenic country. Everything is interesting. It’s been fun, albeit hard work, sorting through the thousands of photos we brought back with us, although it is joyful to relive it. I’ll be publishing a photo diary of our trip, starting with the theme of Streets of Japan, the first places that any new visitor to a country really sees.

In November last year I entered a competition at the newly-opened Design Museum in London, to win a NotAnotherBill gift subscription. And I won! Three months of complementary gifts came in the post, and today I’m reviewing what I received. Also, for the first time on The London Parchment I’m hosting a giveaway, to pay my luck forward that I had when I won this gift subscription.

I’m off to India on a business trip and have carefully compiled my travel carry that I’ll be sharing with you today. I’ll be spending more time outdoors on this trip compared to my trip to Malaysia, so my carry needs to reflect these uses. I’ve focused on packing tools that are reliable, easy to reach for and will take a beating if necessary, as well as including a couple of new products.

I set off from London on Saturday for a business trip to Malaysia, which is very exciting. Naturally this required forethought as to what my stationery carry would be for the trip so I thought I’d do a quick update post (from the plane!) on what I’ve brought with me.